As promised, throughout this week, we will be putting out posts containing our interviews with some of the teams from the Solar Splash 2018 competition. We’re starting out with our Canadian team, Hyperion Solar Boat Team from the Université de Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
As mentioned in our previous posts, our team at UPS Battery Centre had the pleasure of attending the final 2 days of the 5 day Solar Splash competition. While there, we had the chance to speak to some teams and interview their members! Our first interview today comprises Vincent Cote and and Levy Leblanc, members of the Hyperion Solar Boat Team. Vincent is the captain of the team and he worked on designing the structure of the hull. Levy worked on designing the solar panels and putting together some of the electrical components. They are both newly graduates (Dec of 2017) and come from mechanical engineering backgrounds.
Location: Clark County Fairground Lake Springfield, Ohio.
Question #1: Feelings on Being at the Competition
Having spoken to them prior to the interview, I had learned that the team had spent 2 and a half years working on their boat! So my natural question was, how they felt having finally gotten to the competition after all the time they spent working on it. Vincent answered this question:
“This was a 2 year project. We designed everything from the ground up so for us, concluding it and getting to the stage of completing the loop was really essential. We really wanted this experience and we feel that we’ve done that. We’ve learned a lot and it has been great for us.”
Question #2: On Hopes and Achievements for the Competition
Additionally, I wanted to know what kind of hopes and goals the team had and what they wanted to accomplish at the competition. This being as a group and on a personal level.
Their official goals were:
1. Performing a distance of 27.5 km (17 miles), in 2 hours at the endurance event
2. Travelling a 300 m (1000 feet) distance in less than 22.4 seconds at the sprint event.
3. Completing the Slalolm race at the minimum speed of 50 km/h.
Vincent told me how from the beginning, they planned to design everything from the ground up. Doing it themselves and depending on their own skills was a big point for them. However, this resulted in some issues as their electrical system broke down a month before the competition! They of course, dealt with that problem and fixed up their system but they knew it would not be as powerful. Therefore they were not expecting to do as well on the sprint race but they had faith in their abilities for the endurance test!
Here is a video of the abridged version of the interview:
Question #3: On Struggles and Difficulties:
The team is comprised of 7 mechanical engineering students and 1 electrical engineering student. As mentioned by Vincent, the electrical system failed a little bit over a month before the competition so aside from the fact that the electrical engineering student was the only one with that expertise, he now had to build another system from scratch in just a month!
Levy: “Yeah and we also had to fight the weather. I mean we are from Quebec, Canada so it’s not like amazing weather to be practicing boat races so we needed to find alternatives. We also just graduated and we had to juggle times and make sure everyone could meet up without comprising their job”
Question #4: Plans for the Future
To finish off the interview, I asked Vincent and Levy about their future plans and takeaways from the competition. Having graduated in December, Levy spent a few months travelling in Asia but he maintained contact with the team and now he has an interview with the team’s main sponsor. Since he wants to work with solar power, this company is perfect for him!
“In the beginning, we started this project because we believed in the message of Solar Splash. We like the idea of solar power being used in this way and we wanted to be a part of this competition. Personally, I want a career working with renewable energy so this project fits my mission and it was really really nice to work with solar energy in this way” (Levy).
On the other hand, Vincent, who also graduated from in December says that he is working for a consulting company and that Solar Splash for him has been a great experience…”For me, it was about not knowing the skills to complete this challenge in the beginning, but through putting in effort and hard work, we were able to acquire and learn those skills. In that way, this project became very meaningful for me.”
I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak to them and we all wish them the very best in their future journeys!
For more information on the Hyperion Solar Boat team, check out their website at: http://hyperion.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca
This was the first of our interviews, we hope you enjoyed it. Let us know your opinions in the comments below!
Related:
Sherbrooke’s Hyperion Solar Boat Team Members at Solar Splash
